Photo Credit: Katerina Pavlyuchkova
On Monday, 7th May, as I researched our theme for the month, I came across a powerful teaching, which I promised to share with you. We will be learning about the application of a major ingredient recurring in our text — Joshua 1 — and that ingredient is courage. To take risk you will require courage and not just that, you will need to be “very courageous.” And what’s more, it is a command from God. Our God instructs us to be Bold and very Courageous! Be ye transformed as you read. Amen.
"Risk is a back door to success"
In another text, we see an interesting sort of risk prophets engaged in consistently. In this kind of risk, they would go against the kings. They were powerful men often in the context of their success and the prophets would tell them they were doing something that was ultimately going to lead to their own destruction. Ezekiel describes the glory that was Tyre. It was a powerful city that through its trade and through its shipping acquired an immense wealth, prestige and power in its time. But then this word of the LORD comes to the king of Tyre and challenges him.
Ezekiel 28: 6-10, “Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Because you have made your heart like the heart of God, therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, the most ruthless of the nations. And they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor. They will bring you down to the pit and you will die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say, “I am a god,” in the presence of your slayer, though you are a man and not God, in the hands of those who wound you? You will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hands of strangers, for I have spoken!” declares the Lord God.”
The point here is that Ezekiel is doing something rather strong. It’s one thing to criticize someone when things are not going well or say correct things to make it better but this king is being extremely successful and he comes against him. He’s taking a huge risk and it requires tremendous conviction for you to go against what seems to be successful in this world.
I believe that great conviction requires great truth. When you combine real truth with conviction then you have the power of courage. In this text here’s a man who had courage because he was convinced of the promises of God and he knew he was a man who was called to communicate great truth. It’s a matter of challenging people in their own arenas and in their own lives to take the risks that are necessary, the risks of obedience and pursuit and to model that in our own lives.
It’s been said that failure’s the back door to success. I’d like to suggest that risk can also be a back door to success. Jesus took a huge risk in Matthew 21:12-22 when He cleared the temple. It describes how when it came time for the Passover He went up to Jerusalem. “He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So, when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.”
This was a huge risk-taking adventure here; for Him to take a bunch of ropes and turn them into a scourge and then to chase these people out of the temple. This was a profitable business location and there were thousands of people who were buying and selling. He was taking the risk of rejection by the crowds. He risked them taking Him aside and killing Him. He risked misunderstanding and any number of things. But His zeal for His Father’s house was consuming Him. He ultimately chose to cleanse this, symbolic of the reality of Israel’s own religious externalism and folly. Again, as I see it here, I see a man who takes calculated risks and we are also called to take calculated risks. — Dr. Ken Boa
My commentary:
It is the baby step risks that lead to the giant step risks. If you haven’t risked stretching your faith to receive elementary things from God, how do expect to take the bigger risks of bearing God’s message to another or of taking a bold stand against a tide of wrongdoers?
If we haven’t obeyed simple instructions like, “Cut a piece of wood and drop it in the place where the axe head fell, the axe head will float,” (2 Kings 6:6), or “Go, borrow vases from your neighbor, borrow not a few. And when you have done so, shut your door and begin to fill the vases with oil…” (2 Kings 4:3-4).
If we haven’t taken baby steps to risk a little, how do we expect to take giant steps and risk everything? To him that has, more shall be given, and to him that hath not, even that which he has shall be taken from him; (Mark 4:25).
In God’s kingdom, every process begins with a seed, a talent, a mustard seed faith, a step of faith — a risk. Begin today, and you would have discovered the back door to success.
Comments